There was a reason to be fearful heading into the Aronoff Center Saturday night for the John Mellencamp show.

It was the third date of his 80-show Plain Spoken Tour, and the fact that he named the tour after his last album could have been an indicator that he was going to go heavy on relatively unknown "Plain Spoken" material at the expense of his crowd-pleasing back catalog.

Yes, we get it. Mellencamp, 63, is still a viable artist: "Plain Spoken" debuted at 18 on the Billboard charts in October, so there are people that still want to hear what he has to say, and he wants to say it.

But who wouldn't want to hear the old stuff over the new, song for song? Me. I would have taken "Hand to Hold On To," "Jackie O" and "Rooty Toot Toot" over any three new ones.

That said, it didn't turn out to be that bad in terms of a new-to-old ratio: Eleven of the 20 songs in Mellencamp's nearly two-hour performance would have to be considered old favorites, and he put them forth with help from a fantastic six-piece band. The show, in the Aronoff's Procter & Gamble Hall, was sold out.

He opened with "Lawless Times," a new one with the full band muscling into it. Its looping bluesy rhythm brought to mind Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women," and its lyrics were packed with swipes at the police, Wall Street and Catholic priests. "You better watch your behind," Mellencamp sang.

He got deeper into the blues a few songs later with a stripped-down version of Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway," a performance with just him, Andy York on slide electric guitar, John E. Gee on upright bass and drummer Dane Clark. Mellencamp's voice has lost some of its range from the hit-making days to now, but he is still a belter, and he wailed effectively on that one.

Two newer songs that the crowd paid little attention to were two of the best performances of the night. Each came from "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County," a 2012 musical by Mellencamp and author Stephen King. Mellencamp called show opener Carlene Carter to the stage, and she sang "Away from This World" and "Tear This Cabin Down" as many people in the audience chatted or left their seats.

Songs like "Authority Song," "Pink Houses" and "Cherry Bomb" drew the opposite reaction. The crowd stood and clapped along. "Jack & Diane" provided the biggest moment of classic-rock sharing between crowd and performer. The band cleared the stage, leaving only Mellencamp and his acoustic guitar, and he let the crowd do most of the singing.

Carter's opening set was great. She performed solo, playing acoustic guitar and piano and singing renditions of Carter Family songs like "Storms Are on the Ocean" and "My Dixie Darling" and her own songs like "Every Little Thing" and "Easy from Now On."